


When It All Falls Down

by whatthefrickfrackpaddywack



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Supernatural
Genre: 74th Hunger Games, Alternate Universe - Hunger Games Setting, Angst, First Kiss, Hunger Games AU, Love Confessions, M/M, Pain, Sibling Incest, Weecest, Weechesters, Wincest - Freeform, brief mentions of prostitution, guys it's the hunger games okay, teenagers are getting murdered here people
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-19
Updated: 2016-08-21
Packaged: 2018-08-09 14:45:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,922
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7806004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatthefrickfrackpaddywack/pseuds/whatthefrickfrackpaddywack
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The transformation happens right on the screen before him: the hardening of the eyes, the set of the jaw. There is a fury there, painted across Dean's face, drawing his painted on features tight like a bowstring just waiting to snap, and for an instant Sam can see it: the wilderness, the black. He sees the brother. He sees the murderer.</p><p>“They thought they could take him from me,” Dean whispers then. It’s a hiss: reptilian, venomous, deadly. “They thought they could walk away with my baby."</p><p>For just an instant, the humanity in his eyes flickers: fleeting, false. His voice drops.</p><p>“Well...they thought wrong.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> YES, I know I know, I should be updating "Quiet" right now, but I had to get this idea down before it left. I promise I'll add the next chapter soon, but please continue flooding my inbox with le spam! Love ya'll.  
> (I need more hunger games au's involving the boys, the plot is just too perfect.)

Dean wakes up to screaming.

He bolts straight up, knife in hand, and all the breathe rushes out of him in an _'oof,_ as an elbow is jerked into his abdomen. Boney knees and too long legs thrash under the threadbare sheets, cold sweat soaking through Dean's old t-shirt. Sammy is shrieking next to him, eyes squeezed thin and tight. It takes Dean a minute to realize that Sammy's still dreaming.

"Hey, hey, shh..." Dean grabs Sam by the shoulders and starts shaking,  _hard,_ needing to wake him up from whatever nightmare is plaguing him this time.

Dean can guess what he's dreaming about.

Sam's eyes open slowly, mouth still open as his jerking slows to a stop. Huge heaving breathes shake a small frame, eyes wide and staring at something from his subconscious before they finally focus on Dean. 

"Sammy, 's okay, you're home, it was just a dream baby..." shaking gasps turn into thick, wet sobs as Sam's eyes twitch left and right, realizing the truth of his brothers words. "Shh, s'okay, you're okay, I'm right here..." Dean gathers him up against his chest and slowly rocks him, fingers stroking through ratty hair. Dean's chest hurts, strung tight and empty. He hums an out of tune lullaby as light begins to filter through the window.

Sam settles down, sobs becoming gasps becoming sniffles. Dean keeps rocking, keeps humming, until baby tight fingers relax their grip on his chest and reach around to pull him tighter. Dean shifts slightly until he can place his chin on top of chestnut hair. 

"I'm s-sorry." Sam mutters, trying to fit his long ass legs more comfortably in Dean's lap. The poor kid is getting too lanky, probably won't be able to fit at all by next year.

"Sorry 'bout what? Crying? Don't worry, I know how emotional your period makes you." That earns him a half hearted punch on the shoulder. He smiles softly.

"They picked my name."

Dean stops smiling.

"Sam, your name is only in there once. There's no way they're going to pick you." There's no way. Hundreds of names were entered this year, every kid in district twelve,13-20, and most've 'em were in there twice. Sammy wasn't gonna get picked.

Sam snuffles and wipes his head against Dean's shirt. "Dude, gross! Get your fucking snot away from me!" Sam laughs wetly and keeps burrowing. Dean doesn't make a move to stop him.

"...we're gonna be okay, right?" He could still make his voice so small, baby soft and trusting, when he wanted to. He used that voice to get away with an insane amount of shit that Dean would never admit to. But he wasn't faking it this time.

"Yeah, baby. We always are." 

Dean was entered forty-two times this year.

"Hey, you need to take a bath, like, yesterday, kid. You smell like shit." That earned another laugh, dimpled cheeks grinning against a solid chest. "And I swear to god, if you use up all the warm water I'm skinning you alive."

"Can you brush my hair?" Arms tightened around Dean's back, obviously stalling for time, trying to drag this out. Because as soon as they left the warmth of their bed, It was going to hit Dean like a sack of bricks. 

Forty-two times.

"I'd rather just chop it off." Dean huffed out, hands still stroking over the knotted strands. Sam wiggled closer.

"Don't you dare."

"I swear, man, just gimme five minutes with some clippers and-"

"Stop it."

"You only brush it like twice a year, anyway-"

 _"Dean,"_ There it was, bitchface #17, whining out against a lanky teen desperately trying to fit himself back into his brothers lap. Dean laughed, deep and loud.

"You're such a girl, Sammy."

They stayed like that, holding each other, on their too small bed, in their too small room, in their too small house, and pretended for a little while longer.

Because in four hours, they wouldn't be able to pretend anymore.

 

\-------------------------------------

 

This was Dean's last year.

He turned twenty in two months, eliminating him from the reaping and the possibility of dying in the games. One more reaping, two more names, and Dean was safe from the hunger games forever.

It wasn't exactly a good feeling.

The Winchesters lost their parents at a young age. Mary died when Sam was still a baby, taking their nice town house with her in a horrible fire, and Dad disappeared into the woods when Dean was twelve. And they've been on their own ever since. It's not as if their district had the finances to take care of two wayward orphans when their were already so many mouths to feed. Things like boy's homes and social services existed in places like District two, where they had the finances and structure to take care of their people. They had nobody. They were left to die.

It was a no brainer: Either put his name in a couple extra times and risk the games, or watch his baby brother starve. 

Not a difficult choice to make.

When he was fourteen, he started going into the woods again, hunting squirrels with the bow Dad gave him when he was six. He used to hunt with his father, sell game at the roadhouse, but it was different on his own. It was harder. He once got lost amidst the trees for two days, stumbling back home to find Sammy crying in an empty bathtub with Dean's jacket wrapped around him. He dropped out of school after eighth grade to hunt full-time, re-learning how to track from dad's old journel and practicing his shooting until he was as good with a glock as he was with a bow. Sam melted down nails while doing homework at the kitchen table, animatedly telling Dean all about the history of Panem while making bullets from scratch. They fell into a routine; Sam would study, Dean would hunt, and after school they'd sell squirrels at the roadhouse where the peacekeepers turned a blind eye. Every two months, Dean would enter his name an extra time. 

And they survived.

For five years, they made it on their own. Just the two of them.

It was an odd sort of happiness.

Yeah, there were nights when Dean said he'd already eaten, stomach growling as Sam eyed him in suspicion. There were days when he'd walk down the alley to Alaister's house and walk out with coins in his pocket and bile in his mouth. There were whispers. Some were hungry, Dean's reputation of having a mouth and knowing how to use it blending beautifully with an idea of a mysterious loner, a reclusive stranger. In a few cases the whispers were kind, mentions of sharp wit and soft charm, ( _Oh he’s such a darling, did you know he saved the whole year to buy that cupcake for his little brother’s birthday?_ ) Some were scared, the parentless boys who shamelessly traipsed through the woods and knew how to handle their bullets. What they said was true, though, in a way. Everyone knew the Winchesters; hunters, traders, never far from each other. It ain't all that different than how it was with dad, really. Dean’s life has always revolved around Sam.

 

The people of District 12 are, as most outlying districts, usually covered in a layer of dust and dirt. Baths are a waste of clean water when you're just gonna get dirty again the next day. It's really only the wealthier people from town that bother stay sparkling.

Also, the water is fucking cold.

"God _damnit,_ Dean, stop scrubbing so hard!" Sam's teeth chattered as he slipped the soap up and down his arms. Dean laughed and dug his nails deeper into Sam's scalp, making him yelp and splash he freezing water out the sides of the tub. Dean's shirt was soaked, sleeves rolled up as he tried to untangle the mess of hair in front of him.

"Maybe I should just shave it all off, we could sell it to the fabric shop down the road-"

Dean felt strong hands grab his arms, and suddenly he was being dragged face-first into the icey bathtub.

He came up sputtering, ( _"YOU WANNA GO, BITCH?")_ Sammy laughing till tears stung his eyes, and the small wooden tub groaned in protest as the two boys splashed water at eachother.

"Dean, Dean the tub's gonna break-"

"I'm gonna break your  _face-"_

His clothes were soaked through and his finger tips felt numb, yanking that knotted head down into a headlock while Sammy laughed and laughed. His fingers slipped through soap laden hair, cheeks pink and pinched tight from smiling too big. He finally sighed and grabbed the soap again, scrubbing some through his hair because  _he's here anyway, might as well get something done._ Sam grinned and stuck is long ass leg out the side to make some room.

"Why do we have to get all dressed up for the reaping?"

"Because if your name gets called, you might as well go out in style, right?" Dean handed over the bar and stripped out of his shirt, splashing some water into his face. "Plus, it's dress code. If you show up looking anything less than impeccable, they send your ass to the hanging tree."

Sam snorted. "You don't even _know_ what impeccable means."

 _splash._ "Hey, you ain't the only one here with fancy book learning."

They scrubbed in silence for a while, Dean reaching for the towel on the hook when Sam's voice perked up again. "It's like the camps."

"It's like the what's, kid?"

Sam had that look on his face, scrunched nose and far away. "I learned about it last year, these things called concentration camps. Back before Panem, when there was more than one country."

"Sam-"

"There was a really big war, and this place called Germany put a bunch of people in camps. They couldn't leave, couldn't talk back to the people who put them there, and these camps were  _awful,_ Dean."

"Sam, seriously, stop fooln' around-"

"These people, the Nazi's, would tattoo numbers on their arms and shave their heads, and they sent them to these things called gas chambers? And then there were the experiments, the torture. They'd starve, and get gassed to death, and when the German people wanted to see what life was like in the camps, the Nazi's would dress everyone up in nice clothes and wigs, and put up fake stores, and video tape it all so that Germany didn't know what was really going on-"

" _Shut up, Sam."_

Sam looked up, dropping out of whatever far away thoughts had been consuming him.

"That's what they're doing to us, isn't it? The peace keepers dress us up, and put us all in the best part of the district, and video tape it all for the Capitol."

Dean bit his tongue,  _hard._

"Finish up, I still need to brush your hair."

"De-"

"Now, Sam."

Dean hopped out of the tub and dragged the towel around his hips, walking into the bedroom to see the clothes Sam had lain out for him.

The least dusty jeans, the hole-less socks, the only nice shirt he owned.

Dean scrubbed a hand down his face and sighed. 

Forty-two times, and if he survived the next hour, he was home free.

But there was still one little white strip of paper with the words  _Samuel Winchester_ printed out in pretty black ink, sitting at the bottom of that bowl.

So no. There was no relief in store.

not until Sammy turned twenty.

 

\----------------------------------

 

Sam stared at Dean with large, scared eyes when they got passed the sign in table. People moved about them, just as quiet. Just as nervous. Dean payed them no mind. He hooked an arm around Sam’s neck and pulled him in, letting the fifteen year old hug him tightly around his waist. Resting his chin on the top of his brother’s head, Dean took a deep breath. Soft hair tickled his nose, tempered by an hour of brushing on his part. Lips graze his collar bone and whisper against the cloth, something Dean doesn't catch. Doesn't need to. He finally strokes a hand through chestnut hair and pulled away.

“All you have to do is just stand here until it’s over and then we can go home. Okay?”

 “I know, jerk. This isn't my first reaping." Sam smiles, but baby dimples are nowhere to be seen on his shaking frame.

Dean swallowed. He wants to reach out and crush his brother against his chest, fold him up tight between his ribcage and keep him safe from this. But there's a peacekeeper starting to eye them, and the reaping starts in ten minutes.

"I'll never let anything happen to you, Sammy." His voice is steady, but his pulse is jumping wild with the possibility that this year, two months before twenty, one of the forty-two slips of paper with his name are gonna end up in Meg Masters hand and he'll be walking onto that stage and never coming back down.

Big, puppy dog eyes hold his gaze, even as Sam starts backing away. "Promise?"

“Promise.”

Dean is nineteen this year. He has a spot right up near the front now; the more times your name is entered, the more chance there is you’ll be call. Better to have them all closer to the stage. Purely for their ease, of course. Dean knows most of the nineteens around him in passing; from school or trading game with their parents. Now a days, most of his time is spent with Sam – teaching him to hunt as their father had started, making sure he keeps up in class, letting him be a kid. His closest friends are Cassie and Garth, both farther behind him in the sixteens. He holds his breathe and begs to nothing that they get through one more year.

"Hellooooooooooooooooooooo District Twelve, and Happy Hunger Games!!" A cheery tone pipes out of the tiny brunette on stage, Capitol glitter streaking over chubby cherry cheeks in brimstone red. "It's so nice to see all your smiling faces again!"

Grim silence follows her tittering.

"Today marks the reaping of the 74th annual Hunger Games!" Her bright eyes flash across the crowd, connecting with parents pushed to the edge and children crammed into the roped off area's closest to the center. "And let me just say, I have  _such_ high hopes for this year!" Her country drawl is like adding insult to injury. 

There's a few minutes of footage explaining why the twenty four tributes are necessary to keep peace between the Capitol and the districts, why President Azazel show's such mercy, yada yada yada. The longer the video lasts, the more panic sets in between Dean's shoulder blades. He keeps his back straight and his chin up high, but his heart is trying to crawl up out of his throat.

Meg Masters say's something she apparently thinks is funny, looking at Bobby Singer, the only living winner from twelve, up on stage, before chuckling at her own joke in the face of his furious expression. She clears her throat and goes for a smile instead. "Well, we'd better hop to it! Happy Hunger Games, and may the odds be ever in your favor!"

Dean's stomach drops.

Her hand is in the bowl.

_Forty-two times, forty-two times, two months till freedom and it's forty two-times..._

A single piece of paper is extracted, held delicately between bejewel gloved fingers, as red as the paint on her lips and the glitter in her hair.

Dean closes his eyes and breathes, the stillness around him making his lungs burn and his intestines squirm. Ice picks are crawling along his skin.  _Forty-two times, forty-two times..._

"Samuel Winchester."

And with two words, Dean Winchester's world stops turning.

 


	2. Chapter 2

The Winchesters don't own a refrigerator.

The amount of money it'd cost to keep it running is suicidal, so you don't really see fridges anywhere but i the Town. They keep their food safe by salting it, pickling it, sticking it outside at night so that it'll stay cool. In the winter, Sam and Dean cut up the river beyond the fence and sell the ice blocks, save a few for themselves.

Last year, when the frost got thick and the air got dry, Dean brought home cocoa powder. Sam screamed laughed and wouldn't stop hugging him until Dean felt his chest get tight in that oh-shit way it does when he's got too much Sammy in his system. He didn't tell him where he got the cocoa, didn't say how he got the money for it, and Sam was too excited grabbing chipped mugs and boiling water for him to notice.

They'd traded some raccoon tails for the cheap ceramic dishes Annie sold in Town, and they were still wrapped up in brown paper on the ice blocks outside. Dean wasn't book smart, didn't know what would happen if you added boiling water to frozen glass, and at the first splash of hot cocoa in the mug, it shattered.

"Samuel Winchester? Come up on stage now, don't be shy!"

The hot liquid burned his hands, sharp shards scattered all over the floor and sticking into his feet when he stumbled back, trailing blood behind him in messy footprints.

Sam didn't even complain about wasting the special treat. He just patched Dean up and shared his cup, curling around him on their shitty mattress to watch the snow fall outside.

"No," he breathed, reflexive, kind of disbelieving. "No, nonononono."

Sam is walking up the aisle, back of his shirt untucked, loo long limbs and ratty brown hair combed oddly into place by big brother hands. Dean is numb. Every single nerve in his body is screaming, burning, racing too fast as he processes the information going in one ear and lodging behind his corneas. His too thin, too tall, too smart Sammy is walking past him to stand on the stage that will take him away.

And it makes him feel sick. So, so sick. Dean's stomach roils and for a split moment, he's sure he's going to throw up. He swallows fast, breathing in heavily through his nose. In, out, in, out. Dean digs his dirty fingernails into his palms as his vision swims before him. Breathe in, out, in, out.

Dean remembers every time Sam has told him he was scared. The time when there was a spider in the house and Sam was three; when Dad got drunk for the first time and Sam was five; the time they got separated in the forest beyond the fence and Sam was twelve. Sam always told Dean, never their father. A pang of terror rips through his stomach and his vision blurrs.

"SAMMY!" He screams, and flings himself through the crowd of nineteens into the aisle to get to his baby.

How could this have happened? Sam's name was one tiny little slip within hundreds, how had this _happened_?

"Dean," Sam chokes out when Dean's crushing weight engulfs him, gripped him tighttighttight in his heaving arms as if that'd keep him there, and the Gamemakers' guards are already opening the little enclosure's cord and pushing their way through the crowd towards them.

"NO!" Dean's hands cradle the back of his brothers skull, Sam instinctively leaning down and folding in on himself, made himself small to fit right.

Dean cannot feel his own body.

Sam clutches harder at Dean's jacket with one hand and with the other reached out to wrap long fingers around the amulet he'd given Dean for Christmas all those years ago. They're pressed together, melted away into nothingness, and this couldn't be real, it wasn't fair and the world couldn't let this happen, please, please no.

_He's only fifteen._

"Dean, it's okay." Sam's voice is shaking out but he's fighting to keep it steady. Dean feels half-dead. "Dean, I'll fight, I promise I'll--"

"No you won't," Dean growls, and there are peacekeepers dragging them apart now, tearing Dean's hands out of Sammy's hair, ripping them away until the warmth of Sam's body is replaced by icy cold clarity.

"Dean, I--"

"I volunteer."

The murmurs of the crowd abruptly stops.

"What?" There is a hand keeping Sam still, pressure on his chest, and Dean can't look at him. "You _what_?"

"I volunteer!" Dean yells. "I volunteer as Tribute!"

"NO!"

Sam breaks free of the grip on him and is back in Dean's arms, back to clutching pleadingly, but for a different reason. A terrible, earth shaking reason.

"No, he can't! Tell him!"

It takes everything in him to shove Sam's hands away and try to get to the dais, like he'd seen the chosen Tributes do every year (some by walking, some by being dragged, but they fucking got there), except Sam grips the back of his jacket and tugs harder than Dean would have thought him capable of, making him stumble backwards and crash into his brother's arms.

" _No_ ," Sam sobs again, and his voice sounds gutted and rough in Dean's ear. "You can't do this, you _can't_ \--"

"Lemme go, Sam--"

"He can't!" Sam cries.

" _Sammy, let go_!" Dean feels Sam's grip tighten around him, one arm around his waist and the other spanning across his chest.

" _No_ ," something wet is sliding down the back of his neck now, salty tang that he knows is coming from the puppy dog eyes he can never say no to. "No," low and firm, as though he really thinks he has a chance of stopping Dean from doing this, from saving Sam's life.

"Well, then we have our first Tribute of the year!" Meg calls out, clapping. The sound rings across the empty square, sharp and jarring. "What's your name, young man?"

"Dean Winchester," his voice shakes, feeling Sam pressed behind him shake his head, _no no nononono_ a chant of denial, and the guards decide to step in again. They tear him away from Sam immediately, methodical and without pity, and propel him forward with so much force he stumbles and nearly face-plants into the dirty cobblestones.

"Dean, no, please, _please_ don't do this to me, I _mph_ \--" Sam's voice is abruptly muffled but Dean can't look back, he just can't.

"Well, congratulations, Dean Winchester! You are the first Tribute of this year's Hunter Games!"

This time there is a weak smatter of applause, sounding hollow in Dean's ears as he climbs the few steps up to where Meg stands without acknowledgment. He knows some of the denizens in the crowd, of course; the whole District showed up for the Reaping, after all. Pastor Jim, looking thunderstruck. Caleb, an old friend of Dad's from the force, staring at him as though it was his own son up there. Inside the roped-off area a few of Dean's old classmates were gaping in disbelief. (Garth is crying. Cassie is shocked.)

Behind him, Bobby Singer coughs.

"Aw, was that your brother by any chance, Dean?" Meg asks, and her tone was patronizing, sticky honey smothered in barbed wire.

Dean can't help a glance in Sam's direction, and he realizes it has taken three of the guards to restrain Sam, and one of them has gagged him with a black scarf in order to keep him quiet. Dean's chest is aching, pounding ticking-death terrified, but this is... the world without Sam would just have been... Sammy would be safe. That was all that mattered. Sam would be safe and alive and Dean could die happy, knowing that.

"Yeah." His voice sounded gruff. Thick. He clears his throat. "Yeah, that's my brother." 

"How  _delightful!_ Couldn't have him stealing all the glory, now could we?" Dean isn't gonna cry, he isn't gonna cry, not in front of all these fucking cameras...

Bobby Singer sits forward in his wheelchair.

"I think we have our first _ever_ volunteer from District Twelve!" Dean's shoulders tense, and he shacks on the poker face he wore when they were low on money and he needed to sink to his knees. "Let's see who your competition is, kid!"

Meg plunges her leather clad arm in deep, blood red nails fishing through the bottom of the clear glass bowl for the next unlucky sonnovobitch to die in the arena. Because that's what's gonna happen. Whoever she calls is going to die in that arena.

Because only one of them can get out alive.

"The second contestant is..."

Dean is a hunter. He's scary with a knife and deadly with a gun. But there's a difference between skinning an elk and killing a child. He closes his eyes and prays to a vengeful god that Garth's name won't be called.

"It appears we have a rather exciting situation on our hands!" She glances at Dean, hot pink sparkles framing her godless eyes.

"For the second Tribute is... none other than Samuel Winchester!"

No.

Dean can here Garth screaming in the foreground, clinging to a frozen Sammy, the whispers steadily growing to a buzz of talk that fills Dean's throat with vomit because  _this is not real._

"No, his name is only-- this is a mistake, this can't—“

Meg waves the slip of paper under Dean's nose with a sickly sweet smile on her chubby cheeks, and there they were, the two words that spell out Dean's death sentence: Sam's name.

This is not real.

 

\----------------------

 

Garth won't let go of him, and for probably the first time, Dean is holding on just as tight.

"You c-can't die D-dean, you can't, I ain't gonna letcha-" His voice is smaller than his waist, ribs digging into Dean's torso, and Dean clutches onto his messy hair.

"What're you gonna do, kid?"

"Kick your ass."

"You can't even  _reach_ my ass."

Garth's laughter is drowned out by a choking noise that makes Dean's stomach drop.

Sammy hasn't said a word.

Garth finally leans away, snot running down that huge-ass nose of his, but he doesn't seem to care. His eyes are as sharp as the bones in his wrist, and just as visible.

"What're we gonna do without you?" He whispers.

Dean smiles too big. "I want you to have my glock. Ya know, just in case."

Garth's face just twitches with exhaustion. "I shot Caleb in the foot the last time you let me use that thing."

"Eh, serves him right for calln' you a wet noodle."

He snorts, eyes crinkling at the corners. "How the hell can you joke at a time like this?"

"I got a reputation to uphold, Fitzgerald! Can't spend my last moments covered in snot." But Dean is trembling. His legs feel like rubber and his arms are numb. Garth crashes back into him one last time, with a desperate squeeze that Dean refuses to call a goodbye.

"I love you."

"Hey, no chick flick moments."

The guard is getting impatient, hovering over them in the open doorway where Dean can see Cassie and Jess in the a line that dean never would've expected to receive.

"...love you too, kid."

Garth whispers something into Sam's ear that Dean doesn't catch. Sam just clings that much tighter, and mumbles back "I promise."

"Jessica Moore, you're up next."

And so it goes.

Jesse is sobbing, _(Come back to me, Sam,)_  and then Caleb is screaming, _(They can't do this, you're just kids, oh my god you're just kids-)_ and then Victor comes in with a stony expression and an urgency in his voice. ( _When you get in there, you boys need to stick together and do what you do best. You_ do not _think of the other tributes as human. You think of them as game. And you hunt them.)_ Cassie looks like she'd been expecting this. Dean reasons she'd probably been right to. She talks to Sam, low and steady, and kisses Dean on the cheek before their time is finally up.

The vultures finally swoop in as they're getting on the train.

Capitol purples and fiery pinks are hurting Dean's eyes with their glaring, pompous pop. The peacekeepers keep the reporters at bay, but the cameras are flashing and Dean glances over to find Sam rigid and haunting, jaw clenched tight with tear stains still tracking into the dirt on his face.

They still haven't said a single word to each other.

The tabloid journalists with their feathery yellow pens and bedazzled eyebrows are screaming their questions, cruel words beating against the side of his brain with a hammer.

_"Dean Winchester, tell us about your parents! Why weren't they seen at the reaping?"_

_"Dean, why would you volunteer during your very last reaping?"_

_"Boys, how do you feel knowing that only one of you can be crowned Victor of the Hunger Games?"_

Dean's eyes are squeezed too tight against his skull with the apathy in their bubbling voices.

When the train doors are sealed shut behind them, the noise abruptly stops.

"Whoa." Sam breathes.

Dean has never been on a train. The only people allowed to leave the district are the peace keepers and the capital reporters. The coal is shipped out with workers from the district that runs the cable cars. the only way you'd ever get to see a train, or the grass of another city, would be if you got yourself reaped.

But...trains are fucking _amazing._

He feels the lurch under his feet as they start moving, but his focus is reserved for the  _giant glass chandelier_ hanging over their heads.

"How much you wanna bet that this hallway is bigger than our entire house?" He walks up to the ornate table covered in pastry's hes only seen pictures of. They smell too sweet. His stomach twists. 

"Dean-" Sam is reaching forward, giant hands shaking with something other than the ill-adjustment to the trains movements.

"HELLO BOYS!" Sam snatches his hand back as Meg's cherry sweet voice echoes out into the room.  

Dean stares as the doors slide shut on their own. He knew all about the capitol's technology, had seen it enough times in the games, but the door just _closed on it's own._

 _"_ My my, what an exciting turn of events! I can see the headlines now: 'The Winchesters of District Twelve' are going to be the talk of the games!" Her smile falters as she gets closer, nose wrinkling slightly. Dean grinds his teeth. "Well, we're gonna have to get y'all some nicer clothes before we arrive. Not to mention a bath. How long has that grime been underneath your fingernails?" She grabs Deans left hand and starts pushing at the cuticles.

Dean is about to rip his hand away when Sam quietly says, "Don't touch him."

Meg's eyes widen in mock fear. "Oh wow, your daddy must've really drilled in those protective instincts. And here I thought Dean-o would be the first one to go full on mother bear." Her fingers tighten on his bicep.

Sam is behind him, so Dean can't see his face. Meg's, on the other hand, is directly in front of him, and whatever she sees wipes the grin right off. "Get your hands off of him."

Megs eyes narrow, and she drops his hand with a little  _hmph._ "They warned me that you district kids were antisocial, but i never expected you to be this  _rude._ We'll have to take a few classes on proper etiquette once we get back home if either of you have any chance at getting sponsors."

"Home? You mean the Capitol?" Dean's teeth ache from how tightly he's clenching them.  "We're riding straight into hell, you bitch."

She raises an eyebrow and lets out a little tinkling laugh. It makes Dean's skin crawl. " _Etiquette,_ Dean. You districts have such an  _odd_ little vocabulary. Bobby calls the Capitol "hell" too. One of these days y'all are gonna  _have_ to tell me what it means." There's a  _whooshing_ sound that draws all eyes to the door, and Dean can't stop the intake of breathe as it  _slides open on it's own._ He needs to figure out how that works.

No one steps past the doorway. Instead, a man in a hover chair floats above the floor into the room. Dean hears Sam's soft " _oh shit"_ at the sight.

Sitting in the chair was the same gruff looking man from the square, except now he had a baseball cap sitting low on his head.

"Well, are you gonna stare all day or are you gonna introduce yourselves?" Bobby Singer snapped.

 

\----------------------------------------------------

 

It started out a little rough.

Meg excused herself once the plates started flying, panic finally setting into Sam's bones at the realization that they were on a  _train,_ heading to  _the capitol the capitol, oh my god Dean we're gonna fucking die,_ Dean trying to calm him down and failing miserably for the first time in his life because _he_ started panicking too, and because he didn't want Sam to see him panic he pretended to be angry, and then he really  _was_ angry, and Sam stopped crying long enough to rip a portrait of President Lucifer off the wall and smash it against the window. Bobby and Dean got into a screaming match over who the hell knows what, Sam's leg punched through a wall and Dean chucked one of the plush love seats across the room. Somehow Bobby got knocked out of his hover chair and onto the floor, knocking into the pastry laden table and taking the whole shebang down with him. Which in turn changed the "break everything in sight" atmosphere into a food fight.

A high stakes, strategically surgery, delicious food fight. 

And now the three of them are playing Poker and eating what tastes to Dean like an edible orgasm in another carriage.

"Slow down, boy, that's gotta be your third slice." When Bobby laughs, he looks about ten years younger, stress lines fading into something softer that Dean can tell hasn't been there for a very long time.

Sam snorts and pops a cherry into his mouth, eyes practically rolling into the back of his head. As soon as the waitresses that work the train saw Sam's  sad puppy eyes, they melted into ecstatic giggles and have been cooing over him nonstop. When they found out he'd never had ice cream before, one of the older ones, (Margret?) practically had a heart attack, cotton candy blue wig falling out of place with the flailing of her arms, "you poor baby!" Since then Sam's had two bowls of some kind of frozen milky sugary stuff covered in rainbow sprinkles. "Sorry, we don't really get fruit back home." Sam tossed a cherry into the air and Dean caught it in his mouth, getting a hoot from between his little brother's squeaky clean cheeks. (Meg hadn't been kidding about that bath; He felt like his skin had been scrubbed off. He didn't even want to  _know_ what was gonna happen tomorrow when they went in for "waxing.) "Sometimes in October, Dean gets cherries and apples. Dean  _loves_ apples." Sam has a bit of whipped cream on his nose, wrinkled up with his grin and making Dean's chest go tight from how  _young_ he looks.

He takes another bite of cherry pie and gives an over

"I haven't had cherries since last October."

"Well you're in luck, it comes in apple too."

" _Are you saying there's more than one flavor!?"_

Turns out Bobby had known thier Dad. They went to school together, not a bug surprise, considering how small and cramped district twelve was. They lost touch after Bobby's name got called, after Bobby started drinking, after John met Mary and moved into the pretty house in the Town and they were happy. Bobby describes a wedding present, a hand carved antler knife, and Sam excitedly pulls it out of his pocket, causing the lady serving tea to scream and drop the pot.

But nothing last forever, and the weight of what awaited them in the next twenty four hours came crashing down with what Bobby said next.

"So how do y'all reckon we're gonna win?"

Dean's blood runs cold.

"Sam's winning." He says, no hesitation.

"What the fuck, Dean,  _no!"_ Sam says sharply, head willing around to stare. Bobby scratches the back of his neck and cough.

"I meant, what're your strengths and weaknesses? We gotta figure something out if you have any chance of making it past the goddamn cornacopia. Y'all are hunters like you're daddy, right?"

Dean sets his shoulders. "That's right, sir."

"Dean can shoot better than anyone I know." Sam cuts in. "You should see him with a bow, it's insane."

"Sam..."

"And he's really good at making traps, and tracking animals, and he knows what berries are poisonous and which ones are nasty-"

"Sam-"

"And he's strong too, could probably take out a full grown man if he looked at him wrong-"

"And Sam can climb a tree faster than you can say "why the fuck was your name in there more than once?" Dean grits out.

Silence.

"Dean, I-"

"No, Sam. Why was your name in there?" He turns to look at his brother, baby fat still sticking to a too thin frame, gangly tall limbs sitting awkwardly. A baby. His baby.

Being sent to his death.

" _why the fuck was your name in there, Sam?"_

"Because I didn't want you doing it any more, Dean!" He looks angry, bird wrists flailing over his head and Dean slams his calloused fist down on the table. 

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Quiet. Scared.

Caught.

"I...I didn't want you doing it any more. When money was tight, a-and I got hungry and you disappeared and came back with food, I didn't want you with this fucking perverts-"

"That's not for you to fucking decide, Sam-"

"WELL WHAT WAS I SUPPOSED TO DO!?" He screamed, teenage voice breaking, Dean's heart breaking right along with it. "You were fucking killing yourself, and I was old enough to put my name in for rations, a-and you h-hadn't fucking  _eaten_ anything in a week-" Sam hiccupped, tears threatening to fall again.

Dean looked at Bobby. Tired, old, exhausted Bobby.

"Where's the goddamn bedroom in this thing?"

\-----------------------------------------

 

Showers, as it turns out, are incredible.

Sam screamed as soon as the water turned on and almost drowned himself, which would've been fucking hilarious if he hadn't looked so much like a wet dog. Dean helped him figure out how to work it, ignoring the way the mechanics of it made his heart beat too fast, and helped Sam into what were probably the softest pajamas in the universe.

"C'mon, Sammy, it's not  _that_ bad," Dean grumbled against the bed which Sam was currently  _refusing to get in._

"You could fit five people on this thing." His fists clenched, tendons standing out against bird wrists. "They must've killed, like, a hundred birds to make it. How many people could that have fed, De?"

Dean rubbed a hand over his face and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Sam, now is not the time."

"Why? Because you're mad at me for making sure you didn't have to fuck some peace keeper for food?"

Quiet.

The only sound the ringing of his ears and the engines of the train.

Sam starts crying again, launching himself against his brothers chest. The bed Poof's up around them as Dean rocks him softly, hand running through his long hair. The numb was starting g to fade away. He wasn't ready for it.

"De, you gotta win. You gotta."

Dean shushed him and pulls the covers over them both, too exhausted to fight against Sam's hands fisting themselves in his dirty shirt. 

"You don't understand. I can't make it without you, De. I can't. I don't want to."

"It's my job to protect you, kiddo." I'm not walking out of that arena. I'm going to die in there.

And you're going to live.

"Maybe it's our job to protect each other, you idiot." Sam sniffles and wipes his nose on Dean's chest. Too young. Too fucking young.

Sam protecting him from red lights ended with Sam's name in a cup that should never have held it.

"Go to sleep, kiddo."

"De, can you sing the song?"

"Of course I can."

Dean presses his lips to Sam's sweaty forhead. Too young. Too young.

Dean feels too young.

" _Once I rose above the noise and confusion_

_Just to get a glimpse beyond this illusion,"_

Sam yawns and snuggles closer.

Dean blinks back tears that he can't let himself spill.

_"I was souring ever higher_

_But I flew too high."_

_"_ I bet you sing it better than mom did," Sammy mumbles, sleep seeping into his teenage bones.

_"Though my eyes could see I still was a blind man_   
_Though my mind could think I still was a mad man_   
_I hear the voices when I'm dreamin', I can hear them say..."_

Sam let out a soft snore, and Dean finally let the tears fall.

_"Carry on my wayward son_

_There'll be peace when you are done_

_Lay your weary head to rest..."_

Dean clenched his jaw in determination, arms tightening around the kid he'd raised from crib to crawl.

He was going to kill every last bastard who tried to touch his brother.

Sam Winchester was going to be the next Victor of the hunger games, and Dean was going to die in the process.

Sammy was going to live.

His baby was going to live.

_Don't you cry no more._

 

 


End file.
